Autism Therapy: generalization

definition of generalization: When a child learns a new skill and is able to perform that skill not just in front of the therapist, but in many different settings. For example, a child can learn to initiate conversation with a therapist and that is considered an accomplishment. A more wonderful accomplishment, however, is when the child is able to generalize the behavior and initiate conversation with his classmates at school. Other similar terms include generalizable and generalize.

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Picture Exchange Communication (PECS) Training for Young Children: Does Training Transfer at School to Home?
Behavior Change, by Carre, AJM, Le Grice B., Blampied NM, and Walker D., published in 2009, summarized Jul 13, 2010

Picture Exchange Communication (PECS) may be easily taught to children with autism, but it may be hard to teach the children to generalize PECS requests outside of therapy sessions and into school and home.

This study focused on the extent to which PECS training transfers to the classroom and home. The three children in the study (5-6 years old) learned PECS quickly. The children did not make many PECS requests outside of the therapy session. The child who had the most PECS training was also the child who made the most PECS requests in school. The authors suggest that it may be important to have trained PECS communication partners in the school and home in order to get the child to use PECS in different settings.


Generalized Effects of Video Modeling on Establishing Instructional Stimulus Control in Children with Autism
Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, by Nikopoulos, CK, Canavan C., and Nikopoulou-Smyrni P., published in 2009, summarized Mar 2, 2010

Video modeling may be a useful tool for stopping problem behaviors as well as teaching skills to children with autism.

This study looked to see if video modeling could help children with autism learn to stop what they are doing and clean up a toy. The three children in the study had good classroom behavior even before the study began. Two of the three children were able to generalize from the toy seen in the video to other toys. The third child had the most problem behaviors going into the study and he also had the most trouble learning from the videos. The authors note that videos are good because they can be made for each child to meet the needs of each child.


Teaching Empathy Skills to Children with Autism
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, by Schrandt, JA, Townsend DB, and Poulson CL, published in 2009, summarized Jul 21, 2009

Empathy may be taught to children with autism using applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy.

Empathy is the ability to understand and relate to other people's feelings. Four children with autism who rarely or never showed empathy skills received ABA therapy 5 days a week for 5½ hours per day at home and at a therapy center. Special ABA sessions to focus on empathy lasted 20-30 minutes, 4-5 days per week, for up to 10 weeks. The children were 4-8 years old. Therapists used puppets to pair actions with words about feelings during these special therapy sessions. They focused on sadness/pain, happiness/excitement, and frustration. All 4 children learned empathy skills with the puppets. For example, a child would say, "Are you okay?" if the puppet was "hurt." Generalization of empathy skills from puppets to people happened with two children, so that when a person demonstrated emotions they responded appropriately. For two other children, generalization from puppets to people was limited. The authors think it may be more effective to teach empathy skills with people instead of puppets.


Parent Training: Acquisition and Generalization of Discrete Trials Teaching Skills with Parents of Children with Autism
Research in Developmental Disabilities, by Crockett, JL, Fleming RK, Doepke KJ, and Stevens JS, published in 2007, summarized Jun 23, 2009

Training on behavioral therapy techniques needs to be less expensive so that more parents can be trained on interventions that help their children with autism.

The authors described how two parents successfully learned skills for teaching their 4-year-old children with autism. The parents taught attending (focusing attention), ball/toy play, and verbal imitation. Training sessions lasted 2 hours and the parent and child worked together for 6-9 sessions. Their children showed improvements in these skills and there were improvements in other skills that were not taught to parents in the training sessions. The authors believe that parent training in some skills may help parents teach other skills (generalization). The authors noted that the amount of time and cost involved in current parent training is high. Training would be more helpful if time and cost could be lowered.


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Maximum Potential All Summer Long for Kids with Autism

Jun 22, 2011

Maximum Potential has been providing online training for applied behavior analysis (ABA) since 2007. This summer they launched an online summer training ABA program so that kids don’t have to miss out on therapy just because they’re not in school. Garrett Butch, founder of Maximum Potential says, “There is always the chance that over the summer our kids can have some form of regression and it is imperative that we keep the momentum going from the previous year.” The summer training consists of 17 modules that help a child with issues ranging from behavior to social skills to generalization.

Read original article: Summer Autism Training Program Helps Parents to Achieve IEP Goals


Speech-Language Teacher Co-Treats with Occupational Therapist in School Setting

Aug 13, 2010

Valerie Lill is a speech-language pathologist in a school-setting who works with children with autism and other disabilities. She became frustrated with all the therapy scheduling conflicts involving the students, who at times were missing out on valuable treatments required by their IEPs. She decided to co-treat with one of the occupational therapists at the school. She explains, “That's the great thing about communication — no matter what she [OT] was working on with the students, it was easy for me to embed the students' speech-language targets within the sessions.” Lill says that it doesn’t work for every child, but she found success in involving the OT because it allowed the children to generalize skills into different environments.

Read original article: Speech in the Schools: Co-Treatment with an OT


Sensory System Repair at the May Institute

Mar 5, 2008

The May Institute (headquartered in Massachusetts) uses systematic desensitization as intervention for sensory integration disorder in children with autism. Therapists treat a child's dislike of certain stimuli as a "skill-deficit." They work with the child in small increments, with praise and rewards, and "collect data to monitor progress." This type of intervention can be slow; however, therapists say the children are able to generalize new skills to language and social issues.

Read original article.


REACH Provides Therapies for Autism

Dec 4, 2007

REACH Professional Development Center in Winfield, KS, provides early intervention for children with autism. REACH staff offers music therapy, occupational therapy, and photo identification association. REACH believes in therapies that allow the child to generalize what they learn at REACH to their home situation.

Read original article.


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Please comment on this autism topic.

Responding to applied behavior analysis (ABA)

Jun 29, 2011 by Anonymous

ABA is good for teaching discrete skills to kids with autism. Actually, there are conflicting analyses of the ABA effectiveness literature....and generalization is still a major challenge. ANd, with ABA, a teacher can focus entirely on nonfunctional skills in isolation with ABA.

 

THere is now growing evidence of the usefulness of developmental interventions for kids on the spectrum, such as DIR. I think a combination of therapies, as DIR and ABA can help a child learn to read, for example, and also to relate and connect with other people.


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Please comment on generalization or other autism therapy topics.

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